I finally understand exactly what Lewis Black was talking about in his "if it wasn't for my horse" shtick. I'm walking through the Target in Cary (for those of you not from the NC, it's a fancy-pants suburb of Raleigh, kinda like Carmel is to Indy) and I overhear a mom and daughter in the back-to-school section. The little girl (about 8 or 9 by the looks of her), is clutching a cute white backpack with pink swirls saying "THIS is the one I want!" Mom pulls a face, and I'm expecting the next words out of her mouth to be along the lines of "a white backpack isn't practical, it'll be filthy by the end of the week", "you don't need a new one, last year's is
perfectly fine", "you know in my day we didn't even HAVE backpacks. We had to tie our books together with a belt, then walk to school, uphill, both ways!" etc. But instead she looks the girl straight in the face and says, "You know, Land's End makes one that looks just like this. Wouldn't you like that one instead?"
As I continue my shopping in another section, I can't help but stew over this. What mother in her right mind tries to convince her kid to get the one that's 3 times as expensive?!? I try to find a way to justify it. Maybe she knows someone who can get her a sweet discount. Maybe she thinks the expensive one will be more durable. Who knows.
5 or 10 minutes go by and I find myself walking by the back-to-school section again. They're still there, fighting over the same backpack! It's then that I realize that Mom has no good reason other than she wants to rub it in the other mom's faces that they can afford the good stuff. I am SO glad we're getting out of this crazy town and back to the Midwest where people act sensibly!
